In an post entitled “How the Sun the Telegraph spread syphilitic nonsense around the world”, The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade sums up how the story got out of hand. He points out that the academic in question never mentioned Facebook by name and that link between sex diseases and online social networking was never any more than plain speculation.

Valleywag, meanwhile got a quote from Facebook setting the record straight:

“While it makes for interesting headlines, the assertions made in newspaper reports that Facebook is responsible for the transmission of STDs are ridiculous, exaggerate the comments made by the professor, and ignore the difference between correlation and causation. As Facebook’s more than 400 million users know, our Web site is not a place to meet people for casual sex – it’s a place for friends, family and coworkers to connect and share.

Also, note that the NHS release does not mention Facebook.”

The ‘Facebook shorthand’ problem

Yes, the ‘Facebook link’ was added by a newspaper. The root problem is that mainstream media outlets like to use “Facebook” as a shorthand for anything to do with social media. Only last month the Daily Mail claimed that “Facebook causes cancer” when the research they were referring to made no mention of that particular social network.

Facebook even threatened to sue the Daily Mail over another article that claimed that youngsters could be approached by paeodiphiles “within seconds” of logging on to the site, despite the fact that the research behind the article didn’t even use Facebook. Still, the Mail won’t be complaining, it’s the most visited UK newspaper site now.

With Facebook being top dog in the social media world, it’s used as an easy ‘catch-all’ term by headline writers. The results can be more than a little misleading.

So, next time you read a sensational headline about Facebook, remember that there’s most likely nothing but a lazy journalist behind it.

Martin Bryant was Editor-at-Large at The Next Web. He left the company in April 2016 for pastures new. You can find him on Twitter, on Snapchat as Martinsfp, subscribe to him on Facebook and visit his personal site. He's based in Manchester, UK and has a thing for quirky American music and Japanese video games.